Pieces of a puzzle
by AllisonNoir
Summary: Mello is gone. The role to finish L's work is left to Near. With the white kid's negligence and almost scary brain it can't be a problem, unless... there is something what is hid under Near's cold mask. Note: I changed a little Near's identity, because the English dubbing made me ambiguous the character, and well, even N's actions and appearence were a little controversial for me
1. Camouflage

Mello is gone. The role to finish L's work is left to Near. With the white kid's negligence and almost scary brain it can't be a problem, unless... there is something what is hid under Near's cold mask.

 **Camouflage**

"Near..." quite knock on the door. Well, that wasn't necessary, but he thought that avoiding the unexpected sights, especially in this part of the building, where the elder boys (horny and moody teenagers) live, counting with him, with his pal and this weird creature, he found better to sign somehow his sudden appearance for the apartment's host. He waited a little, then he entered to the room. However he didn't get anything as an answer, he was exactly aware of that the other heard the knock.

The chamber's view didn't suprise him at all. Althought he has never met with the guy before, after all, he has expected something like that according to the gossips in the corridor, and his imagination what was based on his friend's description about the boy. The space almost from floor to the ceiling was full of different kind of structures from different kind of materials. If he wouldn't aware of the boy's certain age, he couldn't guess him more than ten. His unaccountable attachment to the toys wasn't fit to his real age, not even to his amazing skills. But, he wasn't the only freak being in here, everybody has an oddness here, even him. And the ones who were significant, even there, well, they were inexplicable, just like this boy was.

"Near." he said the other's name again.

The boy not even looked up from his actual work, what seemed like a castle build from thousands of ivory, identical dices. He put some on the top slowly, then looked - only for a moment - for his guest.

"Yes, Matt?" he asked commonly.

He hesitated for a little, but after that he sounded his question why he had came here.

"I haven't seen Mello for days. Did he contact with you?" he asked. The white haired youth looked at him, again for only a quick check and continued then stiffely the work on his masterpiece.

"I am not apprised of his certain location, if you wonder that." he said with a cold tone in his voice and changed the leg what he was always keeping tucked. "He is gone."

"Where?"

"I thought as you are enough smart to concentrate longer than one voiced sentence. I knew as, you two are on equal level, but you make me be disappointed." he murmured and tilted his chin to his lifted knee.

The striped topped juvenile didn't know suddenly how to react, he could have never picture that Near could be this jerk, it didn't fit to his fame. He could be shy, neutral and cheeky, but only on his childish behaviour. This was just- _not him_.

"Otherwise, I am not really interested in Mello's misdeeds anymore. Few days and I'll also go. Roger has already arranged the details. I have nothing to do with him any longer."

That was the worst script what Matt has calculated, but he wouldn't have told that will exactly happen. Like an awful nightmare with the fatal outcome. No, this couldn't happen. Mello has counted to him. Near couldn't be this insensible. Against their endless fights, they have mattered to each other. Behind their words and actions they have cared about the other. Mello had gone to find Near if he had late for his usual fights, and Near had been depressed for days as Mello occasionally had found something more interesting than their small wars. They were each other's rivals but this rivalry has faded their malformed friendship.

Hundred of dices collided suddenly together. The carefully executed building collapsed as his view of the previous scene. He didn't look to Near or took a sight to the element of the wasted masterpiece. He had already know that what he has just seen was not the truth. The towers made from Lego disappeared from the room and the material of the ground, changed, it creepely started to look like as his own champer's floor: full of laundry, garbage and his patchworks, like his color lentiled glass and other personal stuff. It took a minute for him to assemble the nuance details what had betrayed for him the real situation: Near had changed his leg - he never did; Near's room had been on the left side of the corridor - he knocked on the right; he had had three different material in his works - he had never more than one in the same time, the mixture of the toys distracted him, he has already made a rule from it.

The whole stuff was just a dream - or a hallucination. But why the hell his brain distorted the reality? Why did it do with him? He wouldn't have been dream about that, his imagination was too simple to it. Maybe he was awake, right here, right now, just his rational thoughts somehow couldn't manage to comprehend something from the real world, something like a never experienced sound or action, what couldn't be fit to the reality as the prior scene and to cheat his brain, he had fabricated this. _This_ \- what was for himself more acceptable than the reality itself.

He gazed to the space for a long minute and waited as the fake landscape collapsed with its every small parts and his consciousness came back in fine. The truth wasn't far from the happened illusion. He stood in front of Near's half closed door and his fist was on to knock. But then why he didn't take it yet? What was the things what make him to cheat on his senses? What was the incomprehensible point what he couldn't take, to rather create a vision of a cruel Near, what could be more realistic than the truth? What- _Shit_. That was it. That sound, what he has just heard outside of the door, like a soft snivelling. He carefully and slowly opened the door, without a note to his arrive.

"Near?" he asked warily and gingerly dodging the scattered piece of toys - check dominos - on the floor with his steps. What the hell happened here? - he took the question to himself suddenly as he saw the chaos in the whole room. Nothing was unharmed, none of the works was finished. Everything was destroyed - seemingly with purpose and in the middle of the mysterious explosion was a trembling albino dumpling.

Matt wonderingly took his hand one of the punished pieces, then he put it back to the floor. It can't be - he said to himself, but definitely that was the truth: the chaos in a tidy room, a total collapse against the common certainty, and the heartbreaking sobbing in the bed's corner shrink to the smallest living point against the known insensibility.

"Near?" he stepped to him closer, almost two feet away from him.

"Please, leave me alone." he begged with a faint voice, not looking up from his knees. With his hands, he squeezed hard a small robot, like a last handhold against the unknown enemy.

Matt slowly sat next to him.

" _Please..._ " he whispered.

"I won't go." he said seriously, then took the question. "What happened here?" looked he around again on the whole forty square feet area. The whole place was a mess. Near was a complete mess.

"I just... I..." stuttered, but with a deep moaned, he continued differently, with his usual cool voice, but still hiding behind his thin legs. "If you came to here because of Mello, I don't know where he went, he didn't mention to me, he has just... gone..."

What a minute!

"I've already known what you wanna say, don't do it... please, just... leave me alone..." he said slightly in a faltering voice. "I can handle this on my own." he added and hiding his head more behind his turn up legs. Matt only this time noticed that he wasn't wearing his general bright pants, this was an ebony one. Again, the nuance deterring small details what didn't fit anyhow to the familiar existence… Was he dreaming again? Or still?

He leaned with his hand to the bed, pressed the mattress a little with his weight. It wasn't too strong to make scraping voice from the springs below, but enough to reveal an fairly stowed away spot on the bedding and the sight of a tucked clothes beside Near's shaking body.

"What's that?" grabbed he the bright material curiously. The other teared it out immediately from his fingers with a schrilling scream. Matt couldn't ever imagine that somebody could reach such a high pitch, he for the sudden suprise and shock, released the hiding clothes. As Near tucked it behind him, his brain managed to analyse the prior sight. It was just a moment, but he saw it, a similar dark spot on the fabric, just on the bedclothes what now, Near tried to hide with his lowered leg. The color of the bed linen was too obscure to make it obvious, but the boy's common narrowly white dyed pyjama made him realize the sight. That was blood. He freezed.

"Please, Mail, go away." he asked him, using his true surname, seemingly as a last sensitive impulse to begging to him, but Matt couldn't do that. Near's eyes were red and cried out and his face was puffy, he couldn't let to himself to left him with this - anything made with him it. The younger started to screwed his extremely short snow-white tuft of hair with his fingers.

"As I said, I can handle it." he said coldly. He seemed more balanced than few minutes earlier, but Matt knew exactly that he was just on to convince him to leave thim alone in fine. His voice reminded him to his dream - or hallucination, or what the hell had been that. That time Near was cruel, but now... just like a fragile, weak someone. Or someone who had already broken.

"I will take the question again, Near, and I sware, I won't go until you told the whole truth: what the hell happened here, what happened with you?" grabbed he the younger's shoulder and shaked him a bit. It was just a weak action, but it made Near collapse again. The tears were like waterfalls on his pale cheek. He suddenly tilt his bright head to Matt's shoulder.

"Please... help me..." he snivelled. "It's too strong. I don't know... how far... I could fight against... it."

Matt freezed for the unexpected action, but then he took his hand softly to the younger's back. It was a lame cuddle, but it was something and Near didn't squirm under his touch what fact terrified Matt. He hasn't ever touched him, now he could feel how weak and small he was in real. The whole imagination about Near changed in his thoughts.

"I promise, I'll help you, just tell it." he pleased. The younger tightened him a little.

"I really don' wan' it." he murmured.

"Near... I can't help you otherwise." he said and in his thought he noticed the fact that he didn't know the boy's real name. He was a mystery just like L. Matt has known everybody's true name, but not Near's and he hadn't even recognised this. He had never really cared about him. He has heard about this child prodigy, most of the cases from Mello, but he had just closed the boy's existence from his daily sight. He hadn't been enough interesting for him until now, and he has just now experienced the aftermath of his stubborn negligence. Something broke this small guy to pieces and his only protector, Mello, was gone. As Mello's best friend and only pal he should have been take care of him, but he had missed this. Near was sensitive under his cold mask, and he could now see the consequences of letting a child alone without anything protective stuff.

"I miss him so much." he whimpered. "I didn't know it, until... I didn't know how I feel... well, to tell the truth, I didn't even know at all that I am able to somehow _feel_."

"You like him." voiced Matt the substance of Near's loose words as he released the other.

Near started to wind his hair again thoughtfully, as his body got free from the elder's hold. "You know, it's more than a... fight between us. Or as it seems, for me, it's... more. I've never thought this earlier in real. It surprised me too." he explained gazing to the space.

"Okay. So you like Mello. It's a little bit weird, based on your same gender, but I'm not judging. Other hand, that wouldn't be the first creepy things from you and I never think that you are g-"

"Stop it!" he interrupted him and looked black to him for an endless moment.

"If you kiss me after this awkward gaze, I'll let it, but only because you are momentary upset a little, you are not my type and I hope basically, I am not yours." he gabbled quickly.

"I am not gay, you stupid!" he moaned and throwed the other with his robot what he had just a little earlier squeezed in his hands.

"You fling like a girl, Near, it didn't even hurt." he said holding the toy within his fingers. "I still don't understand your attachment such a childish manner like playing with these."

"I am thinking with them." he hissed and teared out one of his thinking tools from the other's hand, hiding it behind him just like the material earlier. His motion reminded Matt to the official topic.

"So, if I take well the puzzle, you are not gay - or according to your report, you are not -, you just now recognised, you like Mello after he went away, god-know-where-and-why, and you tried to hurt yourself because of your feelings. You are aware of your own ridiculous banality, aren't you? And in which suicidal attempt took you apart your room?" he asked then.

Near surveyed his chamber in silence. "I had a slight fit of anger."

The other begun to hiccup as note to a hold in uproarious laughter. "I doubt you had a tantrum."

"Guys…" he sighed. "Didn't you pay attention on biology? I could say right now at least four ligitimate reason why I had a right to have a tantrum. Five, counting with you." Yeah, he could have, but he just couldn't have one. - thought Matt.

"Anyway, I feel myself much better, so... you can leave, I could take ten to one, you have better and cooler things than the weird guy's affliction." he said holding his white hair between two fingers. Matt just now recognised that he used the words to describe himself as the others called him in secret, and it was much more cruel than they could tell to him it face to face. It didn't count how much Near was freakish, he just didn't deserve those cruel appellation. They were just mean to him with this. He has deserved more and he was there now to somehow retrieve. Otherwise he couldn't go now either, the boy's doings and welfare were counted to him now.

"I won't go, Near. You will hurt yourself again. And at least I'll help you tidy your room." he said to convince the younger at least with the second part of his sentence. He had exactly know that the perfect systematization meant everything to the other.

"It's not necessary. I can't predict when an other seizure will come. Thus, building up again the structures in a through of a wave is redundant. You would just waste your time with it. And I don't want to hear again the sound of collapsing, it makes me feel myself... _lost_. In a certain level, that was in some measure the reason why I was flipped out." admitted he.

"So, if I am reading right, you hurt yourself because your dominos fell to the ground?!" he asked stunnedly, with an incredulous tone.

"No. It was just a symphtone, and I didn't hurt myself. I'm not a creepy masochist." mumbled the white kid.

"Still I could imagine that, but put the case I believe in you... after all I saw the blood, that can't be gainsaid."

"As I said, I didn't hurt myself."

"Stop lying, Near!" he yelled to him.

"You're momentary acting like Mello." murmured he, slightly petulantly. "And I am not lying, I'm just hiding the truth."

"In this case, stop hiding it!" he moaned.

"I don't want to frighten you out." whispered the other tilting his head to his pulled up knee.

"Yes, because your current behaviour frighten me less…" he groaned.

"This is why I want you to go." he explained coldly. "But if you are sure to stay here, you might help me in something. With a sentinel, breaking into the other annex, in every aspect, would be less conspiciouos than alone. And Dr. Seymar is still out, so I don't have other choice."

"Why the hell you wanna break in the girl's side, and what kinda thing you have with Seymar, our doc is h-" he voiced but then, freezed. "Oh… _Oh!_ " he said and slightly dragged from the small albino kid. "You really had a tantrum."

"Well, having a tantrum doesn't stereotypically typify for just one gender. At least, Mello is against this racist heterodoxy."

"Yeah, that's undoubtedly a fact." he agreed. He was exactly aware of his friend's emotional and waving behaviour. He has sometimes acting like a huffy girl. But he wasn't one... even if he seemed like someone from the weaker gender with his shoulder-length blonde hair and fringe.

"Otherwise, please don't tell it to anyone." prayed Near to him.

"I won't, I promise. But I don't see why are you hiding this."

Near took to hand the robot toy and softly squeezed it with the snow-white fingers, then started to explain everything to him. The voice was quite and serious, but this time, because they made a point for both of them.

"When we came here, we left our identities behind us and most of the people are their past too. I don't remember many of the details, I was too young, but my slight memories were enough to pretend myself differing from the beginning than revealing my real self to anyone. And with time, I get used to it. In Wammy's the past is past and it was always enough for me."

"So there is nobody who knows about it?" he recoiled.

"L suspected something like that but he didn't bring it on, he rather let it to me." Near said silently, winding a short tuft of hair thoughtfully between her fingers. She didn't look at him when she said that.

"So even the big L didn't know about it?" he sticked down to the fact, not recognising the small details that the other became a little bit closed and cold again. If even L didn't know about it, Near is far better than everybody could ever imagine it. - he thought.

"Don't call him like that way." she murmured then, squezzing angrily the robot toy within her other hand.

"Well, he is a kind of anchor, so..."

Near immediately corrected him. "Was. He was. And he doesn't deserve to talk about him that way."

"I'm sorry." he apologised, noticing in fine that L might have been a sensitive spot to her. "I know he was a kinda idol for you and Mello. He sometimes admitted that to me." Near stayed in silence for a moment, but then continued her confession to him.

"He would had been the second one whom I ever wanted to tell it. I thought he had done too much for me and I owe to him with the truth. I wanted to share with him my real identity as he had came back, but I didn't have a possibility to do it. I was so reserved and he was so busy to even render thanks to him properly. I missed the chance, so I did with Mello." she said sadly and a few tears rolled down on the pale skin.

It was heartbreaking to Matt to saw Near again crying. He wanted ease and lull her somehow but he knew that he just couldn't. As Near had said earlier, it was too strong to fight against it. It was the time for her to feel and what he could do only for the white kid to stay and be there as the only lefted person for her collapsed and twisted world. It was the time for the always cold being to speak it out from her, then undoubtedly as nothing had been happened, get back to the usual, daily restful existence.

"I always wanted to tell him it, I had just waited for the perfect time." she snivelled for the memory of the past then continued. "When Roger mentioned us L's death and the fact that he didn't choose his successor from us, Michael was so upset. I had known he would let the role to me, but I didn't expected he would go away after that. I had known being the next L was everything for him and he had to give it up for me, he had thought as everybody had expected it from he. He had thought, he wouldn't have enough smart to revenge L well and find out Kira's identity, against me. But he was wrong. He wasn't the liar for the whole time as me. I couldn't follow L to find out a lie if I was a liar too. I wanted to tell it him, I wanted to tell him everything but he was already gone. And I had no choice then. I betrayed L and I betrayed Mello and myself. And against all my hopes I must to travel soon to be him, to follow him and I don't know what to do. It's just too much and I can't back out from it, I can't do that. I can't do that to anyone. They counted to me, the whole world counted to me. And what I am momentary capable of is wailing, like that weak Natalie River who I had wanted to forget forever… _damn biology_." she wiped off the tears stubbornly with her long-sleeved pyjama.

Matt stayed in silence for a long, embarrasingly quite minute. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know well Near - Natalie - till that point. He couldn't handle her exceptional open attitude, he couldn't either know what she excepted from him - if she was ecxepting at all anything. He just sat foolishly next to her, but then a thought made him smile.

"After all, I finally managed to get wind of your name, N." he grinned. The small, white kid looked to him with her big grey eyes uncomprehendingly.

After a disturbing deathlike stillness a slight laugh was heard, like an angelic chuckle what slowly was growning to a real laughing.

"You really got the heart of the matter, didn't you?" she asked. Matt lifted his shoulder and hummed.

"Seriously, Near, what did you except from me?" he put the question. "I'm the nerd guy here, not a therapist one. And anyway it was a pretty lame camouflage, admit it, it wasn't even worth the money to come here." he said seriously. The silver tears reappeared again on the other's cheek, but it was this time the tears of joy. Near hiccuped as the mashed up consequence of trying to laughing and crying at the same time.

"You are creepy, stop it." he said coldly, but it just made the other upset more. After a few minutes the other wearily tilted her bright head to his shoulder and pulled him to a hug, grabbing still in her hand the robot toy.

"Thank you..." mumbled she exhaustedly.

"Not at all." whispered he and held the other tightly till she needed it.


	2. Always Rivals

Two years after L died, Near is still in the Wammy's. The white kid is working on to close the case what caused the great detective's death. But, beside N, in the background, there is someone else who also has big plans. For a night the two roads come together.

 **Always Rivals**

 _\- two years later -_

The closed door was cruelly teared to open by the blonde adolescent. Before the chamber's host could have even somehow reacted to the guest's sudden appearance, the guy took a short cut through the built up masterpieces in a flash and as he reached his aim, he nailed the other deep into the mattrace.

"It's you, aren't you?" he attacked the albino kid immediately. The other tried to ease on his pressure. But it was worthless, even by their diverse physicality. The blonde boy was almost six and a half inches taller and this difference was far enough to be an underdog by him. The only possible outcome was thus the fear only. The dark grey eyes looked to the moody teenager terrified.

"I don't know what are you talking about." heard Mello the slight voice.

"Stop lying, Near!" he shouted and tightened the squeeze on the other's breastbone. His palm almost crunched the kid's bones. The other quitely wailed under the pressure and tried to escape from it.

"I'm not..." he heard the faint sound. "Please, release me, Mello." begged the younger to him. The boy for a moment seriously thought about to let the albino go, but in that case he wouldn't know the truth - however he was exactly aware of his deduction. He has just needed a final convincting proof.

"Please." heard he again the thin tone, but he shaked his head stubbornly. He rather took a sit on the edge of the bed, next to the other's laying body. It was nearly eleven at night - from every quarter in a banned hour -, but he was there, against the inappropriate period of the day and the sack time. He hesitated for a sec, and before his conscience would have distracted him from his plan, he rather took the step in aware of the other's lack of collaboration.

He drowed down the bright blanket from the small torso and as the sight of the white pyjama appeared, he smoothly took his other hand to the other's breast. The surface under his palm wasn't roundly flat, it was felt like _something_. It almost fit perfectly to his hand. He couldn't tell which fact befell him as a bigger shock, that one or that he was in right during the whole time, and his deduction came through. He forgot to release the other by the sudden blow. He technically counted with it, but he could have never imagined that it real.

"So it's true." he whispered stunnedly. The younger held back the breath scarily, like an already dead man. Mello after all, against the other's petrified immobility could feel the deadly terrified heart beating under his fingers. The grey eyes were similarly full of fear. The blonde guy finally took back his right hand, but he still held the other tight by his left.

"I won't hurt you, Near, I've just wanted to know it." he explained. "And I was sure, you would never share it with me - or anyone."

Suddenly some silver tears appeared on the ivory cheek. Mello just now recognised how much he had given a fright to him - her. _Her_. It was still weird, but it was by this time, undoubtedly a true fact. That was what he suspected for a good while as he had been noticing the small details and gossips beside the institution's walls. A black hooded boy occasionally has been breaking into the other annex's medical room, leaving only a smell of smoke after his actions.

Mello was aware of the robber's identity, and on the other hand, he knew no one else who could be enough wide boy to take part in that kinda secret stuffs, when even the smoking was forbidden here. The delinquent was beyond doubt, his best friend, the maroon haired nerd guy, Matt. The question was only with who did he made this cooperation. Who was enough scared to trust him with this action instead of revealing the truth of a hiding one inside the boy's section? Why was it more beneficial to the girl to stay here than go to the other side where she was belonged basically? He still couldn't answer those questions.

"Sss..." he tried to calm Near down as the other started to sniffling under him. "Don't cry..." he said gently. "Near..."

He wiped a tear off the pale skin by the sleeve of his black upper jumper. Near freezed under the touch.

"I won't hurt you, you stupid." he said. "Don't be paranoid." and continued to mopped the other's cheek to dry.

"I... don't... understand." whispered she confoundedly, like a dumbass, albeit he – _she_ – substantially could have never been decieved and ambiguous, ever. Mello could credit this fact to himself, he managed to break Near in a certain level, but he exactly knew that, exceptionally, he didn't want to beat the albino, the boot was on the other leg this time.

"Firstly, you are not enough careful. Everybody knows about Matt's pretty burglaries. It's only a matter of time, even for the dumber ones to figure it out. Currently a high percent thinks it's me, I mean the hooded one. They haven't yet stepped over the fact that the guy and the user is not the same person. After they found out this in fine, you will have no time to hide it. I know what are you afraiding of and you just shouldn't."

"I have to." Near said faintly and closed the grey eyes to hold back the rest of the tears. "You don't understand, Mello. You can't see it."

"It's your past, isn't it?" he guessed. Near nodded calmly. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." he said, but then added. "Otherwise, I have to see it." the small kid freezed.

"No..."

"Near... I won't hurt you, promise." he tried, but the albino scarily shaked the short white hair.

"Please, Mello..." she begged to him and started to tremble under the blonde teenager. " _Please..._ " she asked with new silver tears on the pale cheek, selfsame like someone who was on to convince his abuser not to hurt him. Mello didn't want to be a bad guy in her eyes, or at least, not this time.

The boy eased on his pressure, and started to nail him by his left hand into the bed less tight. "Okay, you don't have to." he said and let the stuff. "Just then stop the crying, you seem with it weaker than you really are."

The other snuffled a bit, but after a little time, she calmed and mopped the water from her skin with the white pyjama's sleeve.

"What- what do you want from me?" asked she quietly then from the boy.

"Just three small things." admitted the fringed adolescent.

"Three?" chuckled she again terrified.

"Yeah, three." grinned Mello, enjoying – in fact – approximately the third occasion that, by now, he managed to surprise, momentary, the wisest kid in the Wammy's. "We are already over the first one: finding out the identity of the hider. And if my deductions were right, it comes with the second and the third one. Second..." he said and bent closer to Near. "Don't move."

Near stayed motionlessly, almost literally frightened out of her pale skin as the older boy breathed a slight kiss on her quittering lips. It didn't make sense. He didn't want to make a point with it. He just did it, _tasted_ _her_ , without a certain reason.

"Mello..." Near whispered confoundedly as the blonde guy finally dragged from her.

"Don't think about it, Near. It wasn't relevant here, just a slight bay." he parried off the cuff with a headshake. "Back to the second point, I don't want you to be afraid of me. And third, let me help you. If you would like to hide it constantly, you need a better plan than the current one. Admit it, it was a hasty decision, you were too scared for the first time and nobody was there to help you, despite Matt. He is enjoying it but he is a kinda criminal right now, but for you it won't be rewarding in the long term, there are so much mistakes in your plan." he said and waited few secs to let the other think about it and seize his message. "Well?" he asked then.

The white kid was visibly still under the effect of the previous, almost meaningless action. She had to blink twice, while she managed to come back to the reality and stopped the gaze to the space with her dead grey eyes.

"You… _kissed_ _me_." she whispered barely audibly, as someone who has just now apprehended the occurred thing.

Mello moaned. "Yeah, I did, and as I said, it wasn't relevant. Step over it." he said, trying to cover his impatience that the other was seemingly sticked down such a blindfold action, like that was.

"You kissed me." she repeated.

"Get over it, Near!" he snarled at her. "I won't do it again. I was just curious." he confessed.

"And?" she looked to him wonderingly.

"How do you mean ' _and'_?"

"What was the conclusion?" she explained. The blonde boy freezed.

" _Conclusion_? God's sake, Near! Don't act like it was your first one!" he attacked her as he put together the small pieces. The albino turned away her white head.

"It wasn't…" she mumbled calmly. The moody teenager breathed freely.

"Thank goodness. I didn't want to take your lips' virginity or what the hell, that would have been unfair from me." he said, but then he realised what the other had said. He grabbed the kid's upper on her shoulder and shaked her a bit. "How do you mean it wasn't the first?" he yelled to the albino suddenly.

Near calmly answered, twisting a little hair within her two fingers, as the blonde boy released her. "As I said, it _wasn't_. And as you said, it was't relevant here. I've just gave an answer to your question, as you should do too."

Mello wanted to choke her right now. Near provoked him again, beat him and on the other hand, there was that fact. It _wasn't_. Is it possible that Near told the truth? No, she certainly lied. But what if she didn't? Then it was a boy, or _a girl_? Did Near enjoy it? Who was it? But, these questions didn't count in real, or Mello hoped that it didn't give much point to the current argument, but after all-

"Damn you! But if he hurt you, I swear…" he voiced his anger then, keeping his fist narrow. He couldn't tell why he was at the right moment so furious and angry, like someone who could kill anyone in any minute, but he was. Maybe it was just his damn inherited temper again what determined his daily existence.

"It's not important Mello, get over it." Near said coldly, almost telling with her tone the truth to the blonde, fringed boy.

"I just… _can't_." he admitted to himself too.

The white kid again turn her head away from him. "Don't act like I count to you." she whispered.

"You wan' it, huh? Don't hope, Near, I still hate you. You are my enemy, not my friend, and it will never ever change. I just… I… There are things, you know, what you don't wish, even for your enemies. You won't deserve it, even if you are a stupid creepy, pure sheep within the wolves."

The white girl gazed to him sceptically. "That's sounded a little bit too poetically from you, don't you think?" she grinned. "Anyway you haven't yet answered my question."

"About what?"

"About the kiss, obviously." she reminded him. "How it was felt for you?"

"And you just says, I am poetical!" he moaned indignantly.

" _Please_ …" Near begged to him, giving for Mello with her tone an obvious proof that she really wanted to know it for some inexplicable reason.

"You really want to know it?" he asked stunnedly.

"Yes." she groaned as someone who had to repeat herself for the tenth occasion, well, that was almost the present situation.

"You are scratchy." noted the blonde.

"And you are still ignoring the issue." she reflected. For a moment they sounded like a creepy old married couple, but their discussions were always seemed like that. Near was cold and pretentious, and Mello was the human, the heart, the living one.

"Because it wasn't relevant!" he yelled, trying to remind with his sound the other that the issue was basically specifically awkward and, well, too personal, in truth. "And I won't repeat it, _ever_. So I can't see why you wanted to know it so much."

"Because I exactly know, you won't repeat it!" she shouted to him. Surprising Mello with her never heard emphasis, but after that she heaved a deep sigh and continued much calmer. "Confess it, Mello, it was too long to an accidental movement. You wanted to try it, to fade your curiosity, thus my interest is based on this fact, how you felt it." she said quietly.

Mello stayed in silence for an almost endless minute, then said out what Near wanted to hear, the truth. "It was like white chocolate." the grey eyes looked to him disconcertedly, the blonde guy straightaway explained. "I never tried it, I have always aversed from it, it sounded to me extremely weird, like an intangible stuff, what somewhere exists but not in my sight, but somehow, if I confessed it to myself, a little part of me, have always wanted to try it."

Near smiled, widely, like someone who caught the other to the biggest confession in his life. "It's very impressive."

Mello moaned. "You asked…" he said, aware of his own banality and the ridiculousness of the explication. He just couldn't explain it on an other way.

Near blushed. "Sorry." she whispered and tried to hide her perplexity by her habitual hair-twining, but the blonde boy noticed it. He felt rather to distract her mind about the issue, and on the other part, there was an other stuff what couldn't let him calm, thus he took the question.

"By the way, what was your first one?" he looked to the white kid, bringing up the other side of the subject.

"Bitter and tasted like metal." she murmured quickly. Mello almost heard the added rustled sentence, _'I don't want to talk about it.'_

"And that one?" Near gazed to him wonderingly, but when she answered, again turned her head away and stopped badgering her short snow-white hair. Her fingers stayed in the air, like something would frosted them.

"…better. But it made me sad." she whispered silently and slowly succeeded to galvanize life again into her hand.

"Sad?!" Mello could imagine anything, but that was new. How the hell could a kiss make someone feel sad? Well, from Near anything could have been possible, but, though- He marked to her, but the white face didn't look back, it rather gazed to the space again. But she then answered the unvoiced question.

"Because, you will go away again." well, the tone, how she said it, was sad, in deed. So, then, her note made sense in fine for the blonde teenager.

"It's true. Basically I just came back to my photograph." made Mello a clean breast of it. He has technically been on to leave without the picture, sith he hadn't found it - or at least he hadn't have a taste to break to Roger's office and then spend fucking hours to finally light on his file, thus he rather skipped this shit for an other time -, when the gossips had caught him up on the corridor and he then has winded up here.

Near sighed. "As I calculated." she sounded joylessly, or more joylessly than usually she was. She took a look at him, almost hopefully. "Before you go away again, could you do to me something?"

Mello sceptically raised his eyebrow. "I won't kiss you, Near, I've already told you that. It was far enough weird for the first time, I won't do it again even if-" he started, but the white kid cut him short.

"Could you stay with me? Please…"

Mello released Near in fine, he gazed to her, viewed her for a long time. The white kid – well, she was only one and a half year younger than him, but still, Near was a kid for him, and she always will be – looked sad, maybe, in a certain percent his absence was the reason behind it. He didn't want to know it in real, he just, after a really long, possibly well-thought-out minute, poked then gently the other on her shoulder.

"Move!" he voiced, when she made some space for him beside her. Mello positioned himself under her blanket, leaving enough private space for both of them. He couldn't tell what would have been weirder, if he would stay in crassness about Near's real gender and then share a bed with her or if there wouldn't be a lie during the whole time and he would be here too for some reason, or the current one.

For a moment, he could imagine that Matt laughed on him. He shared a bed for a night with the enemy, who was eventually a girl, or maybe already a woman – he couldn't know and well, he didn't want to think about it. Mello dragged apart from the younger a little bit more. No matter how he approached the situation, it was still unseemly. He has never shared a bed before with anyone, and Near was just too close. Over and above, they were both teenagers – at any rate in a physical view. The other stuff could have been throwed to the dogs, even if Near was just sometimes too cute and pure to her real age.

But before the blonde could have reconsidered his hasty decision, Near moved closer to him and soon he had to recognise that the younger hugged him, tilting her white head to his chest. He knew that he had no other choice than let it to her. Well, to tell the truth, in a way, he didn't want to do anything against it, at all. "All right. But if I heard a single word about it-" he started then resignedly.

The albino gently squeezed a bit the blonde's upper arm. "Mello, can't you just shut up? I want to sleep." she mumbled tiredly, killing the discussion at the beginning.

"I hate you, you know." he said badgeringly.

"Me too." she noted and peacefully closed her eyes, as Mello did a little later, but despite the girl, he couldn't sleep.

He knew, next day – few hours later - he has to leave the orphanage. But that time, unlike this exceptional occasion, he won't came back, ever. Photograph or no photograph, he has had bigger things now, bigger ones than that damn picture. Less than twelve hours and his legs will reach an other continent. He upon the whole, calculated his short attendance here as a last farewell, maybe Near felt it too, hence he couldn't blame her to ask him to stay beside her.

"Good bye, Near." he whispered to the other's ivory ear gently, however he exactly knew that the snow white brainiac hasn't heard him yet. She successfully managed to beat the blonde in sleeping too. "But in the U.S. I'll be the first." he noted simperingly.


	3. Friendship Goals

Two and a half year has passed, the life now is almost peaceful again, almost... if someone's sudden appearence wouldn't ruffle the calm daily life... [worst description ever...]

 **Friendship Goals**

 _\- two and a half years later -_

The twentieth mission was a complete suck. He, by now, has suffered from approximately thirty-six hours to defeat that damn orcs and his alliances had already gave up to pass into the gate, and after an also long fight, sieze the Bright Lance and annex the castle. He now was completely alone against the whole horde of the frumpy enemy, but it didn't count to him too much. He has been always a lonely type and the payoff has been always will be sweeter alone than with share.

He bent closer and prepared himself to the last round. He almost danced with the enemy. Every part of his thin body was ached, but he didn't care with it too much, he was close, closer than ever. He has no longer felt his fingers, his legs have started to tringling. He couldn't even tell when was the last time when he looked somewhere else – only for a sec – than his targets what needed to be eliminated at all costs.

"Damn it!" he hissed as he has just slightly managed to bend from a sword. It was a close shave. It wouldn't have stayed unpunished. "You don't know who you messed with!" he said threateningly and with a quick movement desolated the brave monster who almost finished his mission abortively.

After some really long minute he succeded to reduce the number of the foe to five high bloody beings. None of them was the easiest kind to be defeated, but this fact didn't flip him out, rather on the contrary. He was all agog to start the last round with them.

"Best to last." he grinned and whirled the sword in his hand. "Watcha me Elliot." he smiled, having his biggest rival in mind in this world. He just now was on to beat the other man's achivements. The time has finally come round for a Palladin to beat an Enchanter.

"Thirty-seven hours and I am not even tired!" laughed he exultantly, like someone whose victory goes without saying. He was usually rather a quite type, but now he was standing near to the biggest accomplishment in his life, and he just couldn't be calm. The rest beings were nothing comparing to the hours behind him, he cut them cruelly and he was momentary waiting for the admittance by the creepy one-eyed sentinels. It seemed as the sacrifised hours will be finally payed his way.

"I gotcha." he said and prepared mentally himself to an other fight – obviously they just wouldn't let him near to the treasure and give him the castle's ownership without a word - , when he heard the unknown thundering. Was it again a huge elephant-monster what he had defeated two days earlier? He calculated with some more fight, but within the castle, not outside again, but okay-

Well, otherwise he had managed to kill that mammut-sorta thing earlier, so he has already known the kind's weak points, thus that fight would be fun again for him. It would be a pushover, but, seriously, who cares. He wasn't the person who wrote the regulations, he has been just going with the wave.

He impatiently started to drum with his legs while he was hearing the orders by one of the sentinels. "Come on, dudes." he rushed them in his mind, when he heard again that damn sound. This time it was heard like something else, something else what wasn't connected to this – or as he suddenly tought for some inexplicable reason, it wasn't.

"What the hell?" he meant as an other thunder was heard, louder than the previous ones and it was this time seemed much more pretentious. He still remembered how that mammut-kinds were heard, and that sound just hasn't heard like that, at all. Matt blinked as in his mind the source of the noise finally clocked together.

"I'm busy, moron! Come back later!" he shouted and fixed the holding on the consol. His first three fingers almost went lilac by the seize but in order to get the Bright Lance, he was willing to sacrifize everything. One or two fingers were not the end of the world – althought undoubtedly those were necessary for him and too precious and he just couldn't immolate them in real even for credits or tokens.

As he thought for a moment that he should definitely take out insurance for his fingers – if he would have a wee bit march assets to it, or the system would willing to accept the cryptocurrency, or at least, he would have at least one living and acceptable identity - , the guest again thundered on the weakly equipped door, what Matt reflected with an angry drumm on the floor with his heavy snooker. "Damn it." he moaned inside and relucantly stood up from the brown, seedy couch.

He immediately grabbed the dark blue box from the small coffee table, next to the sofa and got the ligher out from his jeans' pocket. With a habitual quick move, he pulled out a slice of cigarette and put it between his lips and as he stepped to the door, he has already sniffed from it.

"I hope it's an emergency situation, otherwise you are a dead man. I've almost reached the Secret Room…" he informed at once the unwelcomed guest and opened the door, only a little, not to show much from his flat and in what kinda business he was in.

But as he got the vision of the storey's aisle, no one was there. It might have been a prank – he thought instantly. He was on to close the entrance door and go back to continue the game, trusting that while he took this few steps, the beings from the other room didn't find his alter yet and eliminated him such close to the final aim, when:

"What should I expected? You are home and playing with your stupid game as _ssh_ … always." said a pinched voice. Matt opened the door widely and got the view of a weakly squattering person. The blonde guy's eyes were shutted and visibly he has just slightly managed to keep his crouch position.

"What's the matter with you?" asked the maroon haired boy from him anon, referring that the other looked momentary, leaning against the wall, like a defeated dead-end kid after a big fight. The blonde took a deep sigh, then, before he could have answered the question, his breathe became like a fit of couching. It took to him for few minutes to stop it and look to his stripped uppered friend weakly.

"Go… good… to… see… you… too…" he tried with a whistling lung, but rather gave it up, till at least he didn't have to breast for a single breath.

"What the hell?" stepped Matt closer to him. "It sounded like a death-rattle." Out of them, he was the chain-smoker, not the blonde, but the previous choking showed him the complete opposite side.

"You don't say so." whispered the other a little bit later as he gained to breath finally normally. "Help me up!" directed he the stripped uppered guy and reached his right hand towards him. Matt thrown his cigarette and grabbed the other's hand and got him up. As he lifted his old damn friend, the guy's intense flavour reached his nose.

"Is it smoke? Did you make a grill somewhere?" he asked. And also recognised that the other somehow now seemed smaller than him, or he stood slightly tilted by his left side. Maybe he just numbed as he crouched on the floor, and needed more time to his limbs to adjust again. – he thought naively.

"Very funny, Matt." reflected the blonde to his note, then hissed, what sound goaned the maroon's curiousity. It couldn't be just a numb. He looked to the other to find the sensitive spot what the other ached, but he rather shouldn't have done that.

"Holy shit!" he cursed to his friend's whole left side. No, that couldn't be true, it didn't happened, he didn't see anything. He didn't see anything what looked like as a- no, his friend didn't come here, because- no, he just didn't- he has just played with his stupid video game too much and his mind is inreliable, not counting with his colored lensed glass, and the lights in the aisle are also illusive…

It took several minutes while his brain successed to apprehend the sight. He helped the boy into the hired flat and laid him crosswide on the couch. He immediately got the first-aid outfit as the injured took his place. As the sudden shock left his brain, and as he sat beside the other and took out the necessary materials from the white box, his mind finally managed to conceive the situation.

The blonde's whole left side looked like as a lefted meat on the grill. It was black, crimson because of the blood, and coally. He hasn't been really interested in medicine, but he knew exactly despite that, that it was definitely a third-degree burn. And the reason why the other hasn't felt yet the agonising pain, was the physical shock what he has been still in – undoubtedly.

"What the hell happened with you?" Matt asked as he managed to step over on the first shock, then he slowly started to attend his friend, distracting his mind about the facts. "It looks pretty fresh…" he whispered stunnedly.

"It is…" said the blonde below his breath, letting without a word the maroon to nurse him. "Actually it happened three hours earlier... I counted two hours to get here but I fainted in the mid-distance." he confessed calmly.

"How did you get here?" questioned him Matt, concentrating only to his new mission whilst slowly asked his friend about the happened stuff. Maybe during that time, the time would help him too.

"On foot." said the blonde with a tone what made it sounded like as the fact should have been obvious. Matt stopped the other arm's cleaning out.

"Why didn't you call me?" If he would have known it…

But the blonde immediately yelled to him. "'cause I calculated as you were too much engaged by your stupid Mid-East game?!" he said angrily.

"Mean." reacted Matt to the guy's sudden tantrum calmly. In some ways, it was fair enough, but on the other side his friend was also aware of his truth. Matt rather felt as he should note to him the obvious fact. "I could go for you. Confess it, Mello, it was just about your pride." that was the state, not his addiction.

The other kept silent for a while, seemingly he has just now admitted himself his own fault, and the possible solution what he had missed, but he said then something else than Matt has expected.

"I didn't want you to get involved in it." whispered he quietly. The tone as he said the words betrayed to Matt that this time, the blonde said the rude truth.

"To some stupid ' _Let's kill the head of the Mafia_ '-sorta stuff?" looked he to his friend sceptically. Well, he could undoubtedly have imagined something like that. The blonde has never liked following the rules. In Matt's mind he was the second who was tending to do some criminal stuff.

Mello's icy cold eyes almost killed him as he gazed to him for an endless moment, but then the blonde gave up the mental eliminating. He snorted then, like the gamer had told him a complete banality.

"Oh, please, I'm already over it. The guy was a dumbass. It was now Kira…" he grinned, then his features turned into a grimace. " _Ssh_ … God damn it, Mail, it hurts!" he hissed. Matt released him for a moment.

"I don't know what you did, and you know, how this happened, but I somehow have to pick up the melted part of you upper and the mange from your skin. Of course it hurts, moron." he explaned not caring the other's previous sentence and he took off his colored lensed glasses to get a better vision to his practise and henceforth, hopefully, less aching work. Now, nothing else was more important for him than attend the blonde, not even to realising the guy's meandering notes.

Mello time to time hissed and cursed under the picking, but everything else was in silence beyond them. It took approximately an hour when the maroon finished with his upper arm and shoulder, and started to bind it carefully, he only, since then remembered the earlier, only slightly sounded sentence.

"So you killed the head of the Mafia?" He quoted the previous sentence like a bad joke what the other had just told him as a comeback. The blonde waited a sec, before he answered the question.

"Yeah, 'bout two years ago. The guy now is only history, and to tell the truth, under a better directorate, the results have become much more visible. Without me, they were just like little boys on the playground…" he said in a cold voice.

Matt tried not to show too much suprise. However he was exactly aware of his friend's manners and behaviour and his frustrating attachment to be the best at any price, but he just couldn't fit in his head the whole stuff. Mello certainly lied. Or not. Matt rather turned back to cleaning the blonde's injured part of face to distract his mind about the issue. If he worked on something, the things has always started to become easier.

"So you are in the Mafia by now?" he asked curiously, taking that case what the other said, as a matter of fact, was the truth – by the way, why he should have lied to him, it didn't make sense -, and rather concentrated on the next scar. The current sore, what was he momentary working on, disfigured the blonde's childish lines. He had to confess that somehow the guy looked better with it, and his appearence became with it less girlish, rather much more dangerous. However at the moment, this positive side effect meant nothing against the pain and the fact that the guy was grievously injured somehow to get this.

Matt hoped that with his caring behaviour he managed to hide well his inner thoughts and fear from the other. It was far enough for him to think about what had happened with the blonde boy during the years, and what caused this injury in fact. If Mello was now with the bad guy, as he referred to it, with the Mafia, he was on the edge of the existence. And on the other hand, it was only the matter of time, counting with the current situation, for Kira to find him and eliminate him.

"I am the Mafia." said coldly Mello to his question. So it's not a lie, he said that seriously. But then the blonde corrected himself. "Well, I was. It doesn't matter any more. Anyway how much more time has it needed?" he gazed for a moment to the green eyed nerd impatiently, like someone who has far better program than resting here, in the couch, injuredly.

"Are you going somewhere?" surprised Matt. Not capable of comprehending a situation where the blonde had to attend in a certain time. And he was right, there wouldn't be.

"Yeah, I have to." he said and tried to sit up, but he just couldn't. Matt immediately pushed him back to the couch, and as he tried to move again, the maroon nailed his fingers inside a more damaged and deeper scar on the blonde's upper hand to make a point.

"You are not goin' anywhere!" he said coldly, but in the same time on a treathening voice, almost like some insane psychopath – or just like that pyschopath as once he had needed to be - and scooped deeply his fingertips and nails into the other's scar.

The blonde wailed. The pain certainly just now reached his brain, and it sounded like hell. "Are you mental, Matt?!" he shouted to his tormenter, when the maroon guy finally released him.

"See? You can't go." he commented this time peacefully like a kindergarten teacher would have said to an admonished boy and he took place on the floor, leaning his back to the sofa restlessly, like nothing freakish had been happened earlier.

But, what the blonde luckily didn't see from this angle, was his mental collapse. Matt's fingers started to tremble a little bit as he noted the blood on it, it was beyond doubt Mello's. He definitely managed to nail his fingers too strong and the blood came through the bandages. God damn it, I just tortured him - he recognised the cruel truth. Please, not again, _not again_ – he begged, and to calm himself down, he got the dark blue box from the small table, where he left it previously.

It is a game, just a game now, Matt, the game of coldness, till he admit his overthrow, thus far play your role, maybe he didn't recognise it what I've done with him – he thought naively and put a cigarette to his mouth, slowly, almost frustratingly haltingly. Well, he couldn't do it quicker either, he still quittered in a certain level. But in the end he succeeded to calm himself down as he concentrated on the blue box's content and managed to put in repair his haywire thoughts.

He waited for the other's reaction calmly while he was on to burn the fag with the lighter, and trusting that the cigarette would ease on the current problems for good and all somehow, when the injured hit his hand and the silver, engraved lighter dropped out from his hold.

"Try it again and I swear, I'll kill you too!" hissed the blonde. Matt expected this or something like that, with the his friend's current waving mood, but it still surprised him. He didn't hit him or yelled at him, no, he attacked his habit, what was the first time he did it.

"You were never against the smoking." Matt noted wonderingly. And took back the lighter then to his pocket. He seemed better to hide his cherished, second-hand heist from the wacky blonde. He couldn't have forgiven himself if something would have happened with the lighter by his friend. Matt, this time, sloughed off his habit for a greater good.

"Until I didn't have to blow up a whole building within me to cross somehow to Kira!" yelled the blonde then and petulantly tried to turn away from the maroon, to show him his back, but as the couch's surface grazed his burned part, it was just too painful and with a drawling hiss, he rather turned back. "Damn it." he touched carefully the aching surface on his left side.

Matt waited for him stilly. He was by now over to process his friend's scar, the Mafia stuff, the pain what he caused to him in his weak moment and what he has just now managed to perceive, the origin of the injury. Now, it was the blonde's turn to think. It was needed some minutes, kept in silence while the other was calculating and the game addicted boy till then spinned his unfired cigarette within his fingers.

"All right. I'll stay." Mello said then concededly. Matt stopped his substitute motion, and put the single fag to the coffee table.

"Was it difficult?" asked he the other with a wide grin on his face, knowing how much effort should the blonde have taken to say it in loud. It would have qualed for him as a complete capitulation.

"Oh, shut up, Matt!" moaned the blonde immediately. "But only till it'll heal fairly and I can move properly, then I'll go." well, what else should he expected? It was at least half a success.

"All right, dumbass. Since then be a good patient and don't move." he reflected to the tough-headed and stood up to continue his friend's nursing, like his last chance to survive it somehow and the only possible friend kind in the fight against nowadays' well-built society of Kira.

"Friendship goals, huh, Mello?" he asked a little later funnily, holding in his hand a glass of beer, leaning against the fridge-freezer. The maroon smirked as an old memory reached his thoughts. Mello had been hided in the kitchen from Near's revenge, when the blonde had recognised him, secretly smoking under an opened window. They then had made an unvoiced compromise: Mello won't talk about his habit and Matt help him to find out a less drastical mischief against the albino.

They were now undeniably in a jam again, like they had tended to be ancient times earlier when they had been the two damn kid in the Wammy's who had been undoubtedly responsible for the major part of Roger's grey hair and not even talking about the snagged amount of alcohol from Watari's office.

"Just shut up!" cursed the injured, seemingly not taking gladly the reference. But in truth, both of them knew that this was, beyond doubt, the beginning of an anew, kinda unsaid cooperation within them. Anything had happened with the blonde, it couldn't have stayed unavenged, Matt could swear to it. The way of the comeback in turn was just the matter of time.


	4. Smooth Life

Few days after the explosion, and a little bit after Halle's call Mello had to put together his thoughts. Everything what he had built and sacrifised during the years had collapsed, he had to find out something and he had to find himself too.

content warning: nothing I guess, maybe a little bit angst, not much action, I've just played with the idea how Mello could felt himself between he got his scar and met with Near at the SPK's headquarter

 **Smooth Life**

 _\- four days later -_

Few days have elapsed since Mello has been hided. Few days have gone since he almost died in the explosion. Few days have passed away since that damn Kira crossed his plans and he had to sacrifice everything to somehow stay alive. Stay alive. Hmm, what a funny expression! Well, that was the state, but though, it was quite far from the truth. But he was alive now, however everything what he has built during the years, during that fucking four or five years, had gone, disappeared and destructed. And what was the only thing what remembered him to those years and the price and the final aim what he has wanted to achieve for every price, well, it was him. Slightly exciting, but still alive. Thanked to his old god-damn-it friend.

He couldn't tell why he then decided to find the maroon nerd that night, but to tell the truth, it had been the best decision in his life. He couldn't have told what would have happened if he had missed this chance. He had been aware of Matt's location for approximately half a year, but he hadn't looked for him since that time. Due to his connections within the Mafia he had been always conscious of every single impressive identity, and well, Matt's reputation wasn't about a common nerd guy. No one knew the person behind the cybercrimes and the leader of the pirate download and upload stuffs, they had just used mysterious man as anyone else had done it. Mello hadn't recognised that the guy, called 'The Hacker' by everyone, had been actually Matt, his old friend from the Wammy's till he hadn't took a greater sight to the history of the legend.

'The Hacker' firstly had started with pretty crimes two years earlier - almost the same time as Mello, himself, had arrived to this continent - basically only selling games, records and movies, then the guy had been starting to pass on information from different sites what had been protected by variant systems, mainly from bank systems and beneficial websites. The Mafia would have been fool if they hadn't used the guy for his plans. And what had been the price for the cooperation? Nothing. The guy hadn't wanted anything. Why? Because he could have got everything what he had wanted. There had been no system what he wouldn't have broken. Mello had recognised Matt behind 'The Hacker' as he put together the information about the well-known cyber-criminal. Everything had a system, and everything made mistakes and clues if there was someone behind the actions. No one could have been a robot completely, even a god-damn-it hacker. And Mello had founded the root. The weak point in Matt's addiction and kryptonite: games, and to be the best on them.

The man, called 'The Hacker' had used to disappear for three or four days. During those times his systems hadn't stopped, he had been just distracted to take on unique jobs what had needed more time than a few lined program code. Before the missing and after it, the guy had been creepily active, but then, as if he had been swallowed by an earthquake. And what had been those thirty-six of forty-something hours? Well, the time he had been managed to take over the whole game and made an achievement what hadn't been followed. Mello had had his suspicions but he had had to be sure so he had hired then a well-known gamer, called Elliot in the nerd world and called out 'The Hacker'. He had been curious what had been the legend's steps and system and the way of thinking. From that time the whole had become as easy as a pie. But then Mello hadn't connected with him until that night. He had had nobody else than Matt. He could have gone to Halle or Near or just solve it alone, but he hadn't been enough to do it alone. Halle hadn't been an option, he had counted as he would have connected to her, she would have alarmed Near and that would have been equalled with his defeat in their game.

He had been close, closer than Near could have ever been. He had hold the Death Note in his hands, the killing notebook, the tool for Kira's murder and the equipment what was responsible for their idol's death. So in short, he had already managed to beat Near in a certain level, that god-damn-it creepy, pure sheep. And well, he had reduced her crew, but to tell the truth, the whole action had been just a note to Near that he had been on the top during that time. And anyway, he had been sure that the albino had felt nothing from the loss. The people for her meant nothing as ever. But the fact that Mello had killed them – well not literally just indirectly – that fact obviously had made an impact on her. Mello would have been curious how she felt herself, how she looked like as the agent one by one died near to her, leaving alive only the ones whose identity had been unknown and unrevealed through the SPK's system – what ironically had been broken by Matt's previous cooperation.

Mello hasn't told Matt what he had done, and he didn't want to. It had been his and Near's fight. As it was now his and Halle's. Halle. The woman, who has worked for Near and for also Mello. He had called her two days earlier. He had wanted a report about what Near has planned nowadays. She had cooperated willingly, telling everything what he had needed. Mello wouldn't have told if he admired her or hated her. But, she was worse. Or as he had had to admit, she was worse. She was worse than that damn Switzerland. Nobody meant to her anything. The woman wasn't loyal, she wasn't even a disloyal, she was just herself, a completely perfect cooperation for both sides. Not even Near meant to her nothing, but even Mello hasn't counted to her at all. She didn't care with anybody. She has just done what each party wanted from her. She hasn't talked about the other side till she hasn't been asked, then she hasn't closed her mouth. She hasn't wanted to make problem, she was just equal for both sides. And that was the fact what pissed Mello off so much.

He pushed the button on the vending machine and waited for his chocolate to then calm himself down. The square of the shopping street was full of loafer people. He didn't want to come outside, but he had no choice, he has needed a walk. He had to calm himself down and since Matt has started to behave weirdly, he seemed better to leave the flat for a while. He had to think. He had to find out something, a plan to beat Near, a revenge to show something illustrative to Halle and a return match to Kira. But till that time he had to hide, what he has hated so much. He hasn't ever been a one who hided. He has been always in the middle of the happenings, he made them happened, he has been responsible for everything every single time. And now he had to warm the bench for a little time what seemed to him just like a whole eternity. Thus he has needed some air, air from Matt, air from Halle and Kira and even from Near.

He bitten from his chocolate and stepped closer to the massed bunch of people to look after what caught theirs attention so much so suddenly. The appliance in the display window showed a report about an explosion what happened three or four days earlier. The reporter mentioned that the target place was one of the local Mafia's hiding spot and since Kira was on to build a society without criminals and punish everybody who has made something outlaw, the people there had deserved theirs fate. Then she added that however the elimination was thanked to Kira, the first step was made by the Mafia and some innocent policemen hurt during the action, which one of them since then died. The reporter enlightened then although Kira could have been equalled as the god of the coming new world, everyone should have support him till that time, to achieve his aim sooner and cancel every harm being from the world at the earliest possible moment, because till that time innocent people have had to die and the evil would live.

That was the point what Mello couldn't let without a word. "Stupid bitch." he hissed whereof approximately the half of the mass turn to him. Luckily his face was covered by a ridiculously huge sunglasses what he immediately borrowed from the nearest shop as he had left Matt's place and by his hair and even, as a sure point, with his pulled-on hood, so they couldn't see him in real. They saw only someone who didn't agree with their beloved god, with that damn Kira, who has been responsible for everything during the latest six years, even for his steps and current mood, and the reason why the hell he was currently sick of everything.

"What's that sheep? Fucking liberty of speech, take it or leave it!" he cursed and turned away from the ridiculously fond and feeble-minded mass. He would have stayed but in that case he was sure that one of the louder ones who cursed him as he was leaving the scene, wouldn't have lived so much longer. However currently he didn't have his beloved weapon what Rod had gave him few years earlier, he could break anyone's neck as easily as a piece of weak branch, especially when he was pissed off and now, he was exactly pissed off. But he rather left the scene, he didn't want problems, he didn't want to enlighten his attendance on such a monitored place like that street was. Thus he was on to find a better place to calm himself down. The dark chocolate, his sweet addiction and most loyal friend, unfortunately wasn't seemed enough for his current state. He should have kicked someone on his ass, that would have helped, but, no- he couldn't have done that, not now.

He walked on the streets, like he would have done that firstly in his life. Although he has exactly known this fucking city and the people within it and the shadows and how the life has been going there, it seemed after all momentary to him completely new. He felt himself lost, like he would have been a complete stranger there, a foreigner. He felt himself betrayed. But maybe the sour taste in his mouth was caused by the chocolate, but in truth, he wasn't sure in it. He was pissed off, and when he was pissed off, everything was sour and fucked off. When they had been in the Wammy's, he had had his manners to calm down, like punching someone on face, beating Near in a game what only him understood or reduce Watari's well-hided liquids with Matt. Liquids, like apparently has helped to his maroon haired friend these days, or even previously. Namely the amount of the empty glasses in the hired flat's floor told to Mello exactly that the nerd used that way to ease on his problems or on his unspeakable stuffs for a long time, besides the smoking. It has been just tools to reduce his problems, what unfortunately the blonde had experienced too two days earlier, how it has worked when the nerd has been out of one of his distracting methods. Technically it was rather within thirty-six hours, but Mello didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to bring it up or even remember to it. That case hadn't happened.

But beside that inexplicable occasion, Mello had to admit the maroon had right. There have been times when the person needed something more to distract his mind. For Matt, it has been the games, the smoking, drinking and well, something else too. For Mello it has been the chocolate, the tantrums, crossing to Near and beating someone. But once, in his life he has needed more than that. He has needed something what he has never experienced before. He had to switch off. He just hasn't known how to do it and with what. He could have played with one outcome, but he would rather not to entrust himself to his friend, even if that case might have helped to him. Or as it has seemed that the action two days earlier had helped on the nerd. But despite the maroon, Mello hasn't been such a creepy man like the other has been. Otherwise that occasion was one of the main points why he had left the flat. He had to escape from it. He had to forget it.

Thus he took his steps street after street to think, but his thought were just like a bustling ant-hill, it was a complete chaos and for even god's sake, it hasn't wanted to clog together. As he reached the abandoned and darker part of the city, he felt himself as if he had arrived home. He has known the darkness, the streets, and the life there, even the individuals. It was his world. He has lived on these kinda places for almost three years. Well, he had had in most time a room to rest, but that had been just on exceptional cases when he had allowed to himself to live a peaceful life. He had had no time to waste and enjoy the common daily life; he had had ambitions and an aim to be reached. But now, the whole thing seemed as if it would have liked to fall apart. He was beaten, beaten by Kira, betrayed by Halle and even the thoughts about Near and Matt pissed him off.

He has wanted to go home, although he has exactly known that he could have done that. He has just needed to step over on his current mood. He wanted peace. He wanted to be alone. But on the same time, he wanted to be the things like it had been earlier, like it had been five years earlier, when everything had seemed peaceful, when L had lived and the only problem had been that how he should have crossed to Near. And well, he has wanted the times when he hadn't known about Near's secret. Or- no, that fact wasn't one of the annoying things, not at all. To tell the truth, he would have gladly lived again the time when he had been with Near and she had hugged him, being afraid that the blonde will leave the orphanage next day again. The white kid hadn't known that that had been the tightest part of his life. Only one week earlier before that action he had managed to get into the local bad boys' system. But before that, his life had been like hell. He hadn't counted his broken bones, the nights without a place to sleep, or the hunger or the paranoia what had been always followed his existence day after day, week after week and month after month. That had been nothing.

When he had gone back to his photograph, that had been the time when he had managed to get involved in fine into the illegal system. Then the whole thing had become easier. He had quickly succeeded to seduce the boss to change theirs location to the other continent, to a much more beneficial place – and the place where later Near would obviously take her place to continue theirs idol's work, as he had counted that time, and he had been right after all. That had been the time, that night, when he had gone back to say a last farewell to his home. That had been the time when the previous stuffs finally had been on to pay the sacrifice. Mello had never wailed, he had never counted his scars, either in physically, either in mentally, he had just forgotten about them. The only important stuff what had been really counted to him, had been the aim, even if it had took more time him to reach than he had calculated earlier. But at the final line, nothing had been counted, just the fact who had been the first there. And he had always wanted to be the first one. But on that night…

He has never thought about what that night had done with him. But momentary, he had to admit, that something has changed on him that time, not drastically, just a little part of him. And with the fact that it had happened with Near, well, it made the whole thing more cloudy. The things hasn't changed within them, he has hated her, hated that damn creepy albino, who has had to be always the first, always the better one. And Mello has been her competitor. It has never ever changed, and it wouldn't change, ever. But, below the surface, when he has forgotten about the stuffs around him, he has noticed the change. He has started to think about Near, how she has managed to live a totally different live than she has been officially, how the hell he had never recognised the lie, how his words had felt for her then, it had been rude to a kid, not even knowing that she has been officially a girl, how the hell she had managed to swallow everything during the years, what had happened to her in the past what had made her to take this step…

But in truth, what he has wanted to delete that thoughts out of his mind. He didn't want to care with Near, he didn't want to even think about her, he didn't want to know her secret, he didn't want anything, but forget. Forget about that whole damn fucking staff for a little time, to be someone else, like he would have been a normal guy. No Kira, no Near, no Wammy's, no scars on his face, no hiding, no fucking Mafia, no that damn Matt and no dead L, no killing notebook, no Halle, no competitions, no anything. Just some peace. Like he had had near to that creepy albino that night. When he had heard her smooth calm breathes, and for a slight moment he had forgotten everything, just like nothing had been there but him and her and the silence on the house. That had been the time when he had forgotten everything about his coming journey, the tough times behind him, the whole constant comparing within them. For a moment there had been nothing else but them, two kids in an orphanage. But then the dawn had come and he had had to realise his ridiculously naïve thoughts. Nothing could have been peaceful in his life, ever, even for a slight moment. And that had hurt; it has still hurt to him.

He stopped and looked up to the dark streets. Nothing was going to change. He wouldn't live a peaceful life, ever. That wasn't theirs fate, not the kids' from the Wammy's. Near would be L, he would be a criminal or dead, and Matt would be the leader of the cybercrimes and build up a whole systems with his negligence. They wouldn't live a different life, that was theirs curse. That was the curse for the kids' who have raised in the Wammy's. They would have been creepy minds, became the best detectives in the whole world, they would have gave up the fight, they would have lived enough to lose their mind and became criminals, but they wouldn't have been ever the same as the other people have been. They have been incapable to live a common life. But after all, that place what has cursed their existence from the beginning that has been the place what they all could have called as a home. As Mello has done it.

He couldn't know where to go then. There has been no home for him now. He was in LA, on the dark streets, far from England, far from Winchester and ever far from his previous life what he had had before the orphanage. Even the Mafia time seemed to him far, however it had been technically only few days earlier. God, how many things had happened during that few days: Kira, the explosion, Matt, his scar, the realisation of the loss, _Matt_ , the call with Halle and the sour taste in his mouth after the whole... And now he was on the street like three years earlier, he was lost betrayed, like nothing would have changed in real during the years. As he thought about the happened stuffs, he realised how his surrounding seemed so familiar, beside he has known almost every corner of this god-damn-it city. He was standing in front of the place what the criminals could have called as a home, the tavern in the middle of the dangerous part of the city, where no one with a sane thought would have ever visited. But for the men in the illegal businesses, it has been the perfect place, out of the monitored places, out of the common life, but the middle of the counting stuffs what has been leading the city in real.

Mello has never noticed the place's name, just now and he felt it ironically. He has known that it had been earlier a ware house, before the owner had had a thought to create something useful from it, but he would have never thought that the guy had been such a brainless to keep the place's earlier function to its name. The only difference was the size of the letters on the wall. The guy enlightened the first two ones and kept the rest smaller, and darker, almost equally coloured with the background, keeping them only barely visible. Mello had to smile for the realisation that in fact, he was currently standing under his home, in both meanings. It was a home for his criminal ass, a perfect place to hide for a little and take a rest and think about the stuffs, and a home for his soul, what calmed him down a bit as he put together the two capital letters: W H.

Note: soon I'll write what happened during that four days from both sides and the continuance for it, 'cause I think this chapter is quite actionless, so the next needed to be more active and less _ummm_ selfbased - I don't know, is this word exists? :D So, in short, the continuance and the background soon come - sooner than that one came...

A/N: basically I upload chapters weekly, but I've just now managed to figure out how the hell should I connect together chapters to each other, so techically that four chapters were uploaded from the middle of december to this date, I was just too dumb to solve it properly until this time (I made a 'little' break because of my exams, but I have returned now). So the ones who just now found me, well, you unluckily have to wait a little bit for the continuance, hopefully it will come within seven days from now – All


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